Two weeks ago, I picked apart a terribly misleading, ideologically steeped Fox News story that wrongly linked the initial failure of the healthcare.gov Affordable Care Act insurance exchange to the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program. Among my many criticisms was the reporter's apparent confusion between an actual EHR and My Medical Records, the untethered PHR offered by MMRGlobal.

In that post, I said, "I haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence that MMRGlobal isn't much more than a patent troll."

Bob Lorsch, CEO of that company, posted in the comments that I should put my money where my mouth is and interview him. (I had interviewed Lorsch before, but never wrote a story because of my longstanding policy of not paying attention to untethered PHRs since none that I know of has gained any market traction, despite years of hype.)

As this podcast demonstrates, I took Lorsch up on his offer. It was at times contentious, in part because I challenged many of his statements in the Fox story and to me, and in part because he challenged some of mine.

He asked me a pointed question, whether I still thought he was a patent troll. Based on the fact that MMR actually earned patents on a product it actively markets and didn't just purchase someone else's patents for the point of suing others, it's hard to conclude that he is a patent troll.

"A derogatory term used to describe people or companies that misuse patents as a business strategy. A patent troll obtains the patents being sold at auctions by bankrupt companies attempting to liquidate their assets, or by doing just enough research to prove they had the idea first. They can then launch lawsuits against infringing companies, or simply hold the patent without planning to practise the idea in an attempt to keep other companies productivity at a standstill."

By that definition, MMR is not. I still don't think an untethered PHR is a good business model, a belief supported by the fact that publicly traded MMR is a penny stock, currently trading at less than 3 cents per share. I have said that patient engagement, called for on a small scale by Meaningful Use Stage 2 rules, could change the landscape for PHRs—with a better chance in pediatrics than for adult populations—but it certainly will take a few years.

I stand by my original statement that the Fox News story did health IT a huge disservice by latching onto one problem and trying to tie it to an unrelated issue simply because it fits an ideological narrative. As for MMR, well, take a listen and then judge for yourself. It's a long podcast, but I went through the trouble of breaking it down by discussion point so you can skip around as necessary.

Friday is the last day on the job for departing national health IT coordinator Dr. Farzad Mostashari, who is stepping down after four years with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, including the last two years as head of ONC.

I was in Washington two weeks ago and stopped by the HHS headquarters for ONC's Consumer Health IT Summit, the opening event of National Health IT Week, and got a few minutes with Mostashari. (I suppose that was good timing, because I imagine the government shutdown that took effect this week would have canceled the summit and even prevented me from entering the Humphrey Building.) I had the recorder rolling for a brief chat, which lasted less than 15 minutes before Mostashari's handlers ushered him out to his next appointment. But I did get something.

The interview actually goes on a bit longer than what's on this track, moving on to a discussion about Food and Drug Administration guidance on mobile medical apps. (You can read about that in this story I wrote for MobiHealthNews.) As it turned out, the FDA issued its final recommendations Sept. 23, which also happened to be the same day new HIPAA regulations—modifications called for in the HITECH Act—took effect.

I might get another chance to talk to Mostashari at the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives annual conference at the end of next week, after he officially leaves government service and is allowed to discuss his future plans and perhaps be more candid about his tenure; CHIME has confirmed to me that he will keep his speaking slot. For now, enjoy this short interview.

Once again, as has become custom, I sat down with HIMSS CEO Steve Lieber at the organization's Chicago headquarters the week before the annual HIMSS conference to discuss the conference as well as important trends and issues in the health IT industry. I did the interview Monday.

Here it is late Friday and I'm finally getting around to posting the interview, but it's still in plenty of time for you to listen before you get on your flight to New Orleans for HIMSS13, which starts Monday but which really gets going with pre-conference activities on Sunday. At the very least, you have time to download the podcast and listen on the plane or even in the car on the way to the airport. As a bonus, the audio quality is better than usual.

1:00Industry growth and industry consolidation 2:50mHIMSS 3:45Why Dr. Eric Topol is keynoting 6:00New Orleans as a HIMSS venue 6:50Changes at HIMSS13, including integration of HIT X.0 into the main conference 8:55Focus on the patient experience 9:35Global Health Forum and other "conferences within a conference" 13:00Criticisms of meaningful use, EHRs and health IT in general 17:00Progress in the last five years 20:45Healthcare reform, including payment reform 22:30Why private payers haven't demanded EHR usage since meaningful use came along 23:50Payers and data 26:28Potential for delay of 2015 penalties for not meeting meaningful use 29:15Benefits of EHRs 30:40Progress on interoperability between EHRs and medical devices 32:52Efficiency gains from health IT 35:27Home-based monitoring in the framework of accountable care 36:55Consumerism in healthcare 39:40Accelerating pace of change 41:10Entrepreneurs, free markets and the economics of healthcare 43:25Informed, empowered patients and consumer outreach 46:30Fundamental change in care delivery